Words on the journey of raising a boy who eschews many social “boy” labels, and empowering him along the way.

Archive for June, 2009

Today Obama signed a pitiful “concession” to the queer community, extending partial benefits to same-sex partners of government employees. It’s a pittance, and it was meant to lure our community back in after many an egregious slight.

The Family Equality Council is encouraging folks to speak out to the president, so I wrote a little note. Please do the same if you’re moved. In writing, I thought mainly about the message that my boy gets from these half-a##ed actions.

(and here’s where that lovely note would go, but I went and copied the link in my haste, thus losing my lovely note forever. Probably for the best. But do have a look at the site and speak out.)

In bed, snuggling tonight, Q said to me, “Mom, I loved Pride today.” Having a boy who loves Pride, a boy who sees Pride as a regular part of his life…can’t ask for much more. And then the fact that we marched in the parade with HIS SCHOOL!?!?!?! Amazing pride-filled life here. More thoughts on Pride, school, etc to come, but for now, some images.

I love reading pieces where folks take on normative conceptions of gender roles. Or how society tries to force folks into prescribed molds, even if it means stuffing a round peg in a square hole.

A wonderful example, here, on Rachel Maddow and how the mainstream media deals with their discomfort around her butchiness. The author, Malina Lo, does a great job unpacking the general discomfort that folks have with accepting butch women/lesbians. They don’t fit the roles we imagine for women. And here we have Maddow — a butch, successful in the mainstream. A bit much for folks to wrap their heads around.

Mainly, it’s a great piece for really shining a light on this notion of gender funneling, of how blatantly folks struggle to reconcile their stereotypes and biases around gender expression. A nice read.

June 1, Blogging for LGBT Families Day in the blogosphere. Swept up in the recent Prop 8 stir, I’ve not been feeling so hopeful and didn’t know what to write. So I figured, why not a good ole reflection on why it is that I write in the first place.

He’s also a purple-lover, a dress-wearer, and, in his own words, most proud to be “someone who breaks stereotypes.”

So I write for him for many reasons. But they are equally tied up in the fact that he’s growing up in a queer family. Not that that makes him who he is, but it shapes his day-to-day experiences.

There’s a deeper level to my commitment, though, to blogging for Q and blogging as a member of the LGBT community and a queer family. And it has to do with work that’s both for the community of humanity at large, but also the queer community. Because as embracing and wonderful and inclusive as this community is, there’s still room for growth. There’s room to elbow our boundaries and expand them a bit. My boy is at work on that, enrobed so often in pink, purple, and sparkles. He confounds even many queer folks that he encounters, and in so doing helps to make evident the ways that even within a community that fights for acceptance we can still take our own level of acceptance a step further.

It’s for that expansion, for the larger embracing of identity within our community, for young and old alike, that I really blog. Because I know that will make Q’s life, whatever path it should take, a whole lot more comfortable. And I know that the change and expansion of notions — around gender identity, youth identity, just basically what folks “should do” with their lives — will make life a whole lot better for a whole lot of folks. So that’s why I’m here. And I feel so thankful to be on this journey with so many others.